


but if you wait around a while i'll make you fall for me

by jvrt



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Canon Compliant, Growing Up, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Trans Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 04:44:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21440434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jvrt/pseuds/jvrt
Summary: “Richie Tozier, at your service,” He’s doing a Voice, specifically his English Gentleman one, and the guys smile up at him from where they’re sitting.“You got a middle name?” Stan asks, squinting a little as he shields his eyes from the sun.“Yeah, he does, it’s Trashmouth,” Eddie says immediately.or: richie (and eddie), growing up.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 23
Kudos: 234





	but if you wait around a while i'll make you fall for me

v.

They meet the first day of kindergarten, in the playground before school starts. Eddie drops his inhaler and it rolls over to the patch of dirt where Richie is digging holes, poking at worms. He picks up the inhaler and tries to hand it back to Eddie, who flinches backwards and frowns. 

“You got dirt on it.” 

“You’re the one who dropped it,” Richie replies, but he wipes it off on his shirt, digging the fabric into the creases in the plastic to make sure it’s all gone.

Eddie’s still frowning when he takes it back. “My mom says there’s germs in dirt,” he says, but he puts it in his backpack anyway.

“You sure she doesn’t mean worms?” Richie replies, pushing his glasses up before reaching down and holding a worm out to Eddie. “‘Cause there’s loads’a them. Haven’t seen any germs though.”

Eddie shrugs, and when the school bell rings he holds his hand out for Richie to take. “C’mon,” he says, gently taking the worm from Richie and putting it back on the ground. “We’re gonna be late.”

viii.

Age eight, Eddie goes to Richie’s birthday party. Richie’s parents hired a clown who’s making balloon animals for all the kids, so Eddie gets a dog made out of a blue balloon which he places on the outside table beside Stan’s green parrot. Richie’s been avoiding the clown all day, preferring to run around playing tackle football with the other kids from their class. Eddie had played for a couple rounds, but his mom’s voice in his head stopped him after he hit the ground awkwardly and grazed a knee.  _ You don’t want to get an infection, do you, sweetie? _ He hears her say, and he shakes his head and goes to sit on the sidelines with Stan.

The clown finally manages to get to Richie, after making Bill a bright red balloon sword. Richie waits patiently - Eddie thinks it’s because his parents said cake and presents would be next - and when the clown hands him a pink crown, he takes a step backward.

“I want a sword too,” he says, glaring up at the clown. “I wanna fight with Bill.”

The clown blinks down at him, still holding the crown out. “But you’re the birthday girl!” He says in his weird, lilting voice. “You get to be the princess!” As he speaks, Richie’s already walking away to the table where the snacks and presents are laid out.

Richie’s mom intercepts and stops him. Eddie can’t hear what she says, but he can hear it well enough when Richie shouts “I don’t wanna be a princess!” and runs inside the house. Eddie sits still for a moment, shocked that someone his age could just yell at a grown up like that.

Stan grabs his sleeve and drags him up, pulling him along as they follow Bill, who’s headed in the direction Richie ran. Eddie thinks, vaguely, that they’re going to get in trouble for coming inside without permission - the party was strictly supposed to be in the back yard except for bathroom breaks - but his thoughts don’t have a chance to formulate properly before they get to Richie’s bedroom, where Richie is sitting on the floor beside his bed, crying.

“It’s okay,” Bill’s saying, a hand on Richie’s shoulder. “You can have m-my sword! Or- or we can make you another one fr-from some st-sticks and st-stuff.”

“I don’t want a sword,” Richie mutters, wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I just- why do I always gotta be the girl?”

“B-because you are a girl,” Bill replies.

“But I don’t wanna be!” Richie kicks his legs out, stomps his feet. 

Eddie doesn’t know what to say. He guesses getting an adult would be best for this situation, but the only adults around right now are Richie’s parents and the balloon clown, and he doesn’t think any of them would be helpful. Instead, he sits beside Richie, picks up his glasses where they fell and cleans them on his own shirt.

“You don’t have to be,” Stan says, and they all look over at him.

“What?” Richie asks, still sniffling as he takes his glasses back from Eddie.

“If you don’t wanna be a girl. Who says you have to?” Stan continues. “You could be a boy like us.”

“I could?”

“Y-yeah. We c-could call you a boy,” Bill adds, nodding his support. “It’s n-not like there’s any d-difference.”

“What if my mom gets mad?” Richie asks, though he’s stopped crying. Eddie can see the gears turning in his head, the line between his eyebrows furrowing as he tries to work it out.

“We could have it just be us,” Eddie says. “Just for now. We call you a boy in private until your mom isn’t mad anymore. Then we tell her too.”

“You’d do that?” Richie asks.

“Of course,” Bill replies, and hands over the balloon sword.

x.

When he’s ten, Richie chooses his new name. His mom still isn’t enthusiastic about it, but she lets him cut his hair short and wear clothes from the boys section. His dad doesn’t say much, but he’s started ruffling Richie’s hair more, and once or twice Richie thinks he’s heard him say “son.”

“Richie Tozier, at your service,” he says to the gang when they’re hanging out at the Barrens. He’s doing a Voice, specifically his English Gentleman one, and the guys smile up at him from where they’re sitting.

“Richie,” Bill says, quietly, then repeats it a little louder. “ _ Richie _ .”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out!” Richie replies, finger guns at the ready.

“You got a middle name?” Stan asks, squinting a little as he shields his eyes from the sun.

“Yeah, he does, it’s Trashmouth,” Eddie says immediately.

Richie didn’t even realise he had butterflies in his stomach, but as he sits down and throws his arm over Eddie’s shoulders and listens to his friends laugh, he feels acceptance and belonging, his stomach settling and calm taking over.

xiii.

Richie calls Eddie’s house at four pm, voice strangled. “You- you gotta come over, Eds,”

“What happened? Is it your mom again? I’ll call the guys, we can go somewhere, see a movie-”

“No!” Richie almost shouts down the phone. “No, no, don’t call them, just- come over? Please,” he finishes, voice growing desperate. “ _ Please _ , Eds.”

“I’ll be there in five,” Eddie replies, hanging up and running out the door.

He gets there in three and a half minutes, abandons his bike on Richie’s lawn and sprints up the steps on his porch.

“Richie?!” He shouts, closing the front door behind him.

“In here,” comes Richie’s voice from down the hallway. It sounds small in a way Richie never usually does, and Eddie feels the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

“What’s going on…” Eddie trails off as he follows Richie’s voice, stopping short as he reaches the bathroom door. The entire room is red, dripping slowly down the walls and off the shower head, the faucets, the room silent aside from a steady  _ tap-tap-tap _ that turns Eddie’s stomach.

“What the fuck,” he says, eyes landing on Richie, who’s sitting on the bathroom floor, phone still clutched in his hand. “What- what the fuck  _ is _ this? What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Richie says voice still trembling. He doesn’t look up at Eddie. “I don’t know, I came in, and I looked in the mirror, and the sink- I thought I heard- I don’t know. _ I don’t know _ .”

“It’s okay,” Eddie says quickly, stepping into the bathroom and putting a hand on Richie’s shoulder before he even realises he’s moving. “It’s okay. We’ll clean it up.” He’s watching Richie as he says it, and realises he’s staring at a spot on the wall, unblinking even through his blood-coated glasses. Eddie follows his gaze to the mirror, where Richie’s name - his  _ old _ name - is written, the only clean surface in this whole room, his and Richie’s reflections just visible through the letters.

Eddie takes his hand off Richie’s shoulder, quickly walking over to the mirror and wiping his hand across it. The blood gets all over him, dripping between his fingers, and he feels himself gag slightly, but he keeps wiping at it until the name disappears, until the mirror is completely covered, their reflections obscured.

“C’mon,” he says, wiping his hand on his sorts - which,  _ eugh _ , why would he think that was a smart move - and holding it out to Richie.

He watches Richie inhale sharply, then nod as he takes Eddie’s hand and gets to his feet. “I- I didn’t know what to do,” he says. “I just- I called you, and then- then I thought, maybe, if I came back in, it would be gone- but- but it’s still there, and I don’t know- am I crazy?”   


“If you’re crazy then I am too,” Eddie says, frowning at the bloody footprints leading from the bathroom to the wall where the phone base station hangs, and back again. “Take your socks off.”

Eddie takes his shoes off, leaving them in the bathroom, and goes to the linen closet to grab some towels for Richie, who’s still standing in the hallway, shaking slightly. “Take your clothes off, and put this on, then you can get changed, and I’ll clean this up.”

Eddie averts his eyes while Richie strips and throws his clothes back into the bathroom. He’s not sure if Richie is  _ developing _ like the teachers talk about in health class, but he knows Richie now wears a shirt when they go swim at the quarry, and he doesn’t get changed in front of the guys anymore. When Richie says it’s okay, Eddie turns around and hands him the smaller towel.

“For your hair,” he says when Richie raises an eyebrow at him. “And- give me these,” he takes Richie’s glasses, and goes to wash them off in the kitchen sink. He dries them off with a dish towel and hands them back with a gentle smile. Richie looks kind of ridiculous, in underwear and a towel, hair wrapped up like the women in shampoo commercials, but he’s smiling a little now, too, and looks less shellshocked than he did when Eddie first arrived.

“Go change into pajamas or something,” he tells Richie, turning back to the kitchen to find rubber gloves. “If you help we can get it cleaned up before your mom comes home.”

xiv.

After the ordeal with Pennywise, the Losers become more of a family than a group of friends, and the fact that all of them know about Richie - thanks to the clown’s stupid fucking  _ taunting _ , the blood and the missing posters and a coffin with the wrong name, and Richie breaking down in tears as he pummelled it back into the sewer with a baseball bat, Bill and Stan and Eddie shouting “his name is  _ Richie fucking Tozier! _ ” as they threw rocks in its direction - makes it easier when he needs to get away from his mom, from her insistence that as puberty sets in, Richie will learn to  _ like _ being a girl, that he’ll accept the makeup and dresses and fucking twelve step beauty regimen she forces him to go through every Sunday morning.

_ Fuck that _ , Richie thinks, as he rides to the quarry. It’s the height of summer, he’s wearing jeans and a hoodie, a t-shirt and hawaiian shirt underneath, and he has to stop to take a break halfway there because he thinks he’s going to collapse from the heat. He wishes he could wear shorts again, but every time he puts them on his mother’s voice is in his head, reminding him to  _ shave your legs, sweetie _ . The one time he defied her and went to school wearing cargo shorts, hairy legs proudly exposed, some kids called him a hairy-- he can’t remember the word, but when he asked Ben what it meant he said it was some kind of gross term for lesbian, like  _ fag _ but for girls, and Richie went quiet for a while, thinking about how Eddie and the others were called fags or queer almost every day and they rolled with it, took it in their stride, but he couldn’t handle being called this other word even once.

It was Ben who told him there was a word for people like him, too. Ben spent less time alone in the library now, but he still did more research than the rest of them, who were usually busy finishing homework or goofing off and making paper airplanes with flashcards (okay, so that was mostly Richie, and it was mostly Eddie’s flashcards he used). The word was  _ transsexual,  _ and it meant you felt different on the inside, like you were born in the wrong body, and there were ways to help - surgeries and medications that could make you more like the gender you were supposed to be.

Richie spent a few days that summer holed up in the library reading every book they had on the topic - all three of them - too scared to take them home in case the librarian knew. He found some other words, lesbian and homosexual, bisexual, which he tripped over as he read it, wondering if - maybe--

Richie puts those thoughts out of his head. He’s spent enough time worrying about the stuff he can only deal with in the future. Maybe, when he gets out of Derry and goes to college, when he and the Losers are renting the apartment Eddie insists he isn’t sharing with them (“I’m not burning to death in my sleep because none of you know how to clean out the lint trap on the dryer!”), maybe then he’ll look into it. But for now, he’s fourteen, and it’s summer, and he’s meeting his friends to go swimming, and none of this is going to get him down.

xv.

Age fifteen, Richie is woken up by someone pounding on his front door. His parents must be at work, because after he lets it go on for a while without stopping, he has to roll out of bed to answer it. 

He finds Beverly on his porch, hand still raised to knock as Richie frowns at her and hisses. “What fucking time is it? Get out of my house,”

“I’m not in your house, dweeb,” Bev replies, shouldering him out of the way so she can barge in like she owns the place. “I brought you something.”

Richie eyes her suspiciously, then takes his glasses off, both to clean them and to emphasise how much suspicion he’s giving off. “You never get me gifts.”

“Yeah, well, first time for everything,” she says as she takes a package out of her backpack and throws it his way. She’s already trudging up the stairs to his room, so between the height and the fact that he’s still in the middle of putting his glasses back on, he doesn’t catch it.

He picks it up off the floor and holds it at arms length, shaking it slightly as he follows her upstairs. “What is it?” He asks when they get inside his room, closing the door behind him.

“Open it,” Bev says, lying back on his bed. “It’s good, seriously.”

He tears the plastic wrapper open, peering inside. “Clothes?” He asks, shaking it at her. “You got a problem with my look?” He sweeps one hand down his body, showing off the faded Empire Strikes Back shirt and too-big boxers he wears to bed. “I know you’re into fashion and all, but damn, Bev, way to hurt a guy’s feelings.”

“Oh my God,” she says, snatching the package from him and pulling the contents out. “Here. Take it. Don’t know why I try to do anything nice for you, anyway.”

Richie takes what she’s holding, staring at the two pieces of black fabric like they’ve offended him. “You got me… bras?”

“ _ Sports _ bras,” Bev says, grinning. “They’re not like- oh, Richie, no,” she says quickly, standing up to take them from him as she sees his face crumple. “They’re not like that, Richie, I know- I  _ know _ you’re a boy, Richie, that’s why I got them.”

“You gonna get some for- for Stan and Ben and- and everyone else too?” Richie asks, anger and hurt welling up inside him even as he tells himself it’s stupid. He’s got an entire drawer full of bras his mother bought him, most of them with the tags still on, a couple only worn when they go to church or other special occasions where he has to wear the dresses hanging at the back of his closet. He already doesn’t want those, so why the fuck would he want these as well? He’s aware of Bev rambling, but he isn’t hearing what she’s saying, and he knows he can’t be mad at her - he knows he’s weird, and a freak, and he thought they all understood, but maybe it’s different for Bev, maybe because she’s a girl, so she gets it, and maybe all girls feel like this, and maybe-

“Richie!” Bev’s shaking his shoulder a little, staring into his eyes like she’s maybe been saying his name for a while now, and Richie blinks at her.

“ _ What _ ?” He asks, and he knows his tone is rude, but Bev came here and woke him up, and gave him this, and said she was being  _ nice _ , and-

“They flatten your chest!” She says, yells maybe, and Richie’s train of thought skids to a halt.

“They what?”

“They’re not supposed to, I don’t think? But my aunt bought me one, when I said I was gonna run track, and it was too small, but my chest- it wasn’t flat, but it was close, and I looked in the mirror and I thought of you and- if you don’t want them I can take them back, I’m sorry, I should’ve asked, but-”

She’s cut off by Richie hugging her, squeezing her so tight he thinks he might be suffocating her, and he tries to ease up a bit, but he’s so sorry, and he misjudged it so badly, and he’s so, so grateful, and he loves her so much.

“I’m sorry,” he says, finally letting her go. “I’m sorry, Bev, I-”

“It’s okay,” she says, smiling gently at him. “Just- go try one on, maybe? I don’t know if I got the right size, I can return them if you want,” and before she finishes speaking, Richie’s already taking his shirt off.

It’s different, changing in front of Bev. He’s done it before, they share a locker room at school, and while he’s uncomfortable in front of the girls there -- half of them spit nasty words at him or stay fully dressed until he’s gone, making themselves late for class so they don’t have to change in front of him -- it’s fine with Bev. She gets it, and she sticks up for him, tells the other girls to go fuck themselves when they open their mouths, and she hides in the bathroom with him later, sharing a cigarette and bitching about how Greta insults them but can’t kick a soccer ball to save her life.

He puts the sports bra on, and it feels a little tight on his ribs, but he adjusts his chest slightly, and- oh wow. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror on the back of his door, half covered by coats and jackets for the days he can’t stand to look at himself for too long, and he actually gasps.

“They’re gone,” he says, gently touching his chest. “Well. Not  _ gone _ , but,” he moves the coats out of the way, looks at himself properly, from all angles. “Holy  _ shit _ , Bev,” he says, turning to her and hugging her, again, so tight it must be hurting her. “Thank you.”

Bev laughs, pats him on the back. “I’m glad you like it,” she says, smiling over his shoulder at their reflections.

  
  


xvi.

At sixteen, Richie is weirdly into mixtapes. He makes eight in the span of two weeks, scrawling titles on them in messy handwriting, leaving notecards inside explaining the meanings of certain songs, handing them out to all the Losers.

All of them except one, that is.

Eddie isn’t sure why he hasn’t received one yet. He thought he and Richie were close - Richie was probably his best friend out of all the Losers, and he’d hoped Richie felt the same about him. But after Bev gets her second tape and Eddie still hasn’t got one, he starts to second guess himself. He’d never mention it to Richie, or anyone else, for fear of being told,  _ no, dipshit, you’re just not that important,  _ so he lives with it, takes to carrying his Walkman around more often than before, just in case Richie thinks maybe he doesn’t have a cassette player. Richie doesn’t even notice, so Eddie doesn’t say a thing, and sits quietly in the clubhouse and listens to the rest of the group talk about how Richie got them into a new band, or made them appreciate a whole new genre of music.

He avoids being alone with Richie too much after that. Richie can’t like him that much, must only hang out with him out of obligation; if he stops being friends with Eddie, the whole group will splinter and they’ll have to choose sides. Eddie gets it, so he shows up to their get togethers late and leaves early, hoping he can avoid having to spend time alone with him as much as possible.

“Eddie,” Mike says one day as he goes to leave. “Wait.”

Eddie turns around, thinking he might have forgotten something. “What’s up, Mike?” He asks, frowning. Mike’s the only one there, and they’re a good twenty feet from the clubhouse, over where they keep their bikes.

“Did you and Richie- are you guys fighting or something?” Mike asks, stepping a bit closer.

“What? No,” Eddie replies. “Why? Did he say something?” His stomach feels tight suddenly, throat closing up like it hasn’t since he was thirteen and found out his meds were gazebos.

“No,” Mike shakes his head. “No. It’s just… you guys hardly talk anymore. It’s weird.”

Eddie shrugs his shoulders. “I dunno,” he says. He knows if he explains, he’ll sound ridiculous and overdramatic. He can’t explain it to Mike, he can barely explain it to himself without rolling his eyes. “I don’t think he wants to be friends anymore.”

“What?” Mike asks, huffing out a laugh. “Eddie, c’mon. It’s  _ Richie _ .”

“And?” Eddie says, sounding a little hysterical. “I know! I know it’s Richie, but he- it’s just not the same, y’know?” He throws his arms out to the side. “He didn’t make me a mixtape, and he doesn’t talk to me-”

“Wait, what?” Mike asks. “Yes he did.”

Eddie stops speaking and narrows his eyes. “No he didn’t. He made one for everyone else, hell, he made  _ two _ for some of you! And I didn’t get  _ one _ .”

“Eddie, he made you, like, five,” Mike replies, looking at him like he’s an idiot.

“Mike, what the fuck are you talking about, because I never got a tape and I’m starting to think this is all some big prank and you’re all in on it and-”

“Eddie. Eddie, shut up. Eddie. He made you a whole bunch, I saw them, I was at his place the other day and there’s like, an entire  _ box _ full of them, they’ve all got your name on,”

“A whole  _ box _ ?!” Eddie shouts, throwing his arms in the air again. “A whole fucking box? Shut the fuck up Mike, I’m serious, now is not the time to fucking joke about this, I’ll kill you, I’m not kidding,”

“Guys! What the fuck?” And that’s Richie’s voice, coming from the clubhouse as he rises up the ladder. “Mike, it’s your turn, and I’ve got hotels on Boardwalk with your name on them, man.”

“ _ A fucking box _ ?!” Eddie yells again, still exasperated and honestly, tired and a little manic. “You made me a whole fucking box?!”

Richie’s standing still, a deer caught in headlights, and he has the audacity to blink at Eddie in confusion. “Eddie, I… What?”

“Oh, don’t start me, you fucking asshole, you’ve been holding out on me this whole time? This  _ whole time _ , I’ve been wondering why you haven’t bothered making me a fucking mixtape, despite it being your new fucking  _ obsession _ , and you’ll give them out to everyone else like candy, and oh what does Eddie get? Your good pal,  _ best friend _ Eddie Kaspbrak? Nothing! He gets absolutely fucking nothing because, what? You decided to hoard the tapes? You think my music taste isn’t good enough?”

“Eds,” Richie says, quietly, and Eddie stops talking, and it’s only then that he realises Mike must have gone back inside the clubhouse, and the hatch entrance is closed over, the light gone, leaving him and Richie standing alone in the moonlight.

Eddie takes a deep breath. “Sorry. I’m sorry, Richie,” he sighs and looks up at the stars. “I know I’m being stupid, I just thought we- I thought…”

“Thought what, Eddie?” Richie’s voice is so gentle, so soft, and Eddie looks at him, and it’s years of  _ shut up, Spaghetti _ , and always buying two ice cream cones, and not having enough allowance and having to share one double scoop despite the germs, and it’s his mom’s voice in his head,  _ I don’t like you spending time with that Tozier girl, _ and the blinding smile on Richie’s face, through the blood in his teeth, the first time a bully called him a  _ faggot pretty-boy _ . It’s Richie letting him ride on the back pegs of his bike, carrying a second inhaler, still, even years after Eddie found out the first one was bullshit, Richie talking him through panic attacks and making disgusting jokes that Eddie can’t help but laugh at. It’s the fact that Eddie might be a little bit in love with Richie Tozier, and he didn’t realise it until right this second.

“Nothing. Nothing, never mind. It’s fine,” Eddie says, turning around. “Forget it. I’m sorry, I was being dramatic.”

He starts to bend down to pick up his bike, and that’s when Richie crashes into him from behind, wrapping his arms around Eddie’s chest.

“I’ll give you your tapes,” Richie says, pressing his face between Eddie’s shoulder blades. “You’re my best friend, Eddie.”

And Eddie knows just a minute ago he was dying to hear that, but now it hurts him, cuts deep like a knife, _my_ _best friend,_ and he feels dirty, like he’s been built wrong, or like his body, his mind, are mistaking Richie for a girl - but he knows that’s not true, remembers the way he felt that day he was thirteen and the hobo crawled out from under the Neibolt porch,_ I’ll blow ya for free_, remembers being sure to keep his eyes forward and not glance too long at any of the other boys in the locker room, remembers looking over Richie’s shoulder one day in the library and seeing the word _homosexual_, turning bright red and going straight home, the voices of his mom, and news anchors, and television health PSAs echoing in his ears._ It’s time to stop loving dangerously._

In the here and now, Eddie stays completely still, until his hands reach up to cover Richie’s, and he closes his eyes, thinks about how much he wants this, thinks about how much he wishes he didn’t. “You’re my best friend too, Richie,” he replies, and the words feel like acid in his mouth.

xvii.

It’s eleven pm on a school night, and they’re lying on Eddie’s bedroom floor, curled up on the rug that toes the line between itchy and comfortable. There’s a good four inches of space between them, but Eddie can feel the heat Richie’s body behind him, and he itches to close the distance. Eddie’s got music playing, one of Richie’s mixtapes that he finally received, all seven of them wrapped up in a shoebox and tied with a ribbon that Eddie’s sure must have been sarcastic but made his heart skip a beat all the same. This one, much like the others, is full of love songs, and Eddie tries not to read too much into that ( _ you’re my best friend _ , Richie’s voice repeats in his mind whenever he dwells too much on it), but it’s hard when Richie’s so close, and his heart feels so full. It’s not intentional, he tells himself. It’s just that love songs always end up being the best, with lyrics that make you feel something, and catchy melodies, and music videos that make you wonder if you’re supposed to be falling for the girl or the guy.

He’s sure Richie must be asleep, and he thinks about shuffling backwards, into Richie’s space, and immediately feels so guilty he might be sick. Richie’s a  _ boy _ , and he might be transsexual, but that doesn’t make him a queer like Eddie, and Eddie hates himself for even thinking about it. He swallows, head pillowed on his hands, and he knows he should get to bed, throw down a blanket for Richie, but instead he lies as still as possible, pretending he doesn’t want this, pretending he might someday have it.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, eyes closed against both reality and fantasy.

“For what,” Richie replies sleepily, shuffling closer, arm lifting and gently wrapping itself around Eddie’s waist. His hand moves to sit over Eddie’s heart, and Eddie’s sure Richie must feel it beating, thrumming a hundred miles an hour, fragile like a rabbit’s, but he doesn’t move his hand, leaves it lying there, pressed protectively against Eddie’s chest.

Eddie feels like he’s swallowed glass. He adjusts slightly, poison in his throat the entire time as he selfishly contorts himself so they’re spooning, Richie’s nose gently grazing the back of Eddie’s neck. He can feel Richie exhale onto his skin, and his body feels like it’s on fire.

The song on the tape reaches its height,  _ you know I’m such a fool for you, you’ve got me wrapped around your finger,  _ and Eddie closes his eyes.

_ For everything, _ he thinks before he falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> just fyi i am a gay trans dude and uhhh a lot of the Feelings here are p much echoed from my exact thoughts, so.
> 
> i meant for this to be something completely different (it was going to be completely richie pov) but… this is what happened instead. i’m gonna write a second part covering the next ~23 years, and them meeting up again, and and and, but who knows what that will turn out like!
> 
> also this was unbeta'd so any mistakes are my own and if u spot anything real bad then pls let me know!
> 
> the AIDS “it’s time to stop loving dangerously” line is from an actual AIDS psa here: https://youtu.be/oMjCQt3KaRI which i know is an oregon thing but… *waves hands* yknow?
> 
> the song in the last scene is linger by the cranberries. title is from the promise by when in rome, which is also 100% a song on that mixtape.
> 
> find me on tumblr @ ftmtozier


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